Death in a Bottle
by xscarredx13
Summary: An average mortal girl has dreams about people close to death. And now a dark haired son of Hades keeps haunting her nightmares.
1. Chapter 1

**I haven't done a Nico fic in quite some time. So if I totally screwed this up, don't be afraid to tell me.  
Oh, and if the POVs are confusing, Nico's the middle part. Are the other two are... you know.**

I dream of a boy in black.

He's not the first one to plague my nightmares, and he certainly won't be the first one to die. I see him in my visions often—too often. He looks the same in every dream, whether I see him getting hit by a car or sliced in half by a large, grotesque monster. He has the same tired, sunken face, gaunt in the light, as if he hadn't slept in a while. As if he knows his future.

He's actually a pretty cute guy, if you look past the exaggerated exhaustion. He has dark, meaningful eyes—a bit downcast in most of my dreams. His hair is a wild dark mess, his olive-toned skin perfect on each visible part of his body—except for his face, which always appears sallow and pale. The boy is not a young child—he's about my age, fifteen.

I wake up screaming every night because of him. I've always cared for the unfortunate people I envisioned in the past, but I care about this particular victim the most. It's not because I know him—this guy is a complete stranger to me like the rest of them are.  
I mean, _were._

Somehow it pains me to imagine him dying. Is it because he seems around my age? Is it because death is already radiating off of him like a dark, demented aura?

I don't know.

***

Celestial bronze meets Stygian iron in midair, the clang loud and clear as sparks emit from the crossed swords. I look furiously into Percy Jackson's taunting green eyes, sweat dripping down my face. I want nothing more than to beat him at his own game—and to silence the "_Of course he can't beat Percy Jackson"_s that the speculators whisper to each other. My cousin is invincible, inevitable. I'd like to find the chink in his armor someday, but only Annabeth and Percy himself know it.

My arm trembles, weakening, and I let go, ducking as he automatically swings over my head. He manages to slice off a strand of almost-black hair, and he watches horror-struck as it floats to the floor.

"Nico!"

I flinch.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm barely wearing any armor." Actually, I'm not wearing any at all. "You could've killed me. So what?" I grab take a water bottle from the hands of some blushing Aphrodite girl, causing her and her sisters to giggle as I take a cool, refreshing sip. "Admit it, Percy, I'm really getting better at this. I'm a master."

"Sure, Nico, whatever you say."

I narrow my eyes and throw my sword at him, but it simply bounces off the side of his head… as expected.

The last days of camp are now coming to an end—soon enough I have to go to some boring school Alecto signed me up for. It'd be great I could be a year-round camper, but Dad disagrees. I've got to go to a normal, mortal school—_"If Jackson does it, you should too!"_—and learn a bunch of crap senior citizens like me shouldn't have to learn.

I return the water bottle back to the Aphrodite girl, and she blushes even harder when she notices that her lipstick stain is gone. I simply shrug it off—girls aren't an issue that's constantly on my mind. Rachel reminds me often that my fanclub is still at large, but truthfully, I just don't care. Romance isn't something a child of Hades obsesses about.

I look up into the sunny blue sky—usually the slightly-bright glare hurts my eyes, but today I don't mind. Summer is waning, and I want to enjoy the last days of freedom I have before school starts and my ADHD goes wild again.

Suddenly, a feel an odd sense of doom. I try to remind myself that every new-kid-in-school must feel like this, but somehow it's… different. Scarier.

"What's on your mind?" A voice asks, jarring me from my thoughts.  
It's Annabeth, and for once her arm isn't around Percy's waist. She wears a concerned expression—the look a mother might give her son. The rays of sunlight cause her pale blond hair to glow, her grey eyes as smoky as ever. Percy's staring at her again, eyes wide and mouth slightly open.

He's still as predictable as ever.

"Nothing," I answer to Annabeth. I give her a look before she tries to speak again, and she drops it.

Percy snaps out of his little daydream and moves over, ruffling his black hair.  
"Can't wait till next summer," He says softly, putting his arm around his girlfriend as he looks at me. I don't even hesitate to answer, because I truly mean it.

"Me neither."

***

Clarence Liam Academy, a private school housing kids and teens from ages 7-17, is made of acres and acres of green and brown and red bricks. Only the main building is a different color, yellow with plenty of windows. From the side you can see Mrs. Fords at her desk, either typing daintily on her keyboard or glaring out at me from behind the shiny glass panes. I don't understand why she hates me so much—so maybe I like to sit on the ground and read a book during lunch, instead of going to the library to study like all her pets do. Maybe I like to pull my shoes and socks off and dig my toes into the grass while I read. Mrs. Fords shouldn't have a problem with that, she's only a secretary who just happened to be offered a mini-office near the window.

Today is the first day back to school, and the old hag is glaring at me again as I let the dancing grass tickle my feet. I set Jane Austen down, meeting her beady eyes, unafraid. There are rings of dark violet under my own eyes, caused by my lack of sleep.

Suddenly, the enemy's pupils dilate and her face contorts into a look of disapproval and disgust. But, strangely, she isn't looking at me.

"Pride and Prejudice?" A slightly husky voice behind me snorts. "Stupid book."

I realize that _this_ is who Mrs. Fords was scowling at, and for once I can understand why… I just don't have the same reasons.  
I stand up and whirl around, ready to launch into a 'classic literature' lecture, but my voice catches in my throat.

No, no, it's not because the speaker is a fine piece of meat (He is). It's because he's the _guy from my nightmares._ He looks nearly exactly the same as he does in my visions, except for the fact that he looks healthy and tanned, not pale and fatigued. Perfectly Italian, with the kind of goth-emo look.

"Nico di Angelo," He offers with a slight nod.

"Blake Niall," I manage to choke out, still surprised. "Nice to meet you."

Nico shifts uneasily from foot to foot as I continue to gawk at him. "Uh… I'm kind of new here." An unintentional scowl appears on his face, and I assume that he doesn't want to be here.

"Oh, did your mom force you to come?" I ask, relaxing a bit.  
He gives me a wounded look and says, "My mother is dead." I mentally kick myself.

"I'm… sorry," I swallow. This is not going good. No, not at all.  
Nico heaves a deep sigh and looks down at me; he's taller by just a few inches. His eyes are stunning.

"I was wondering if you could give me a little tour. You're the only one who isn't wearing designer clothes, and…" At this I look at the clothes _he's_ wearing, the dark grey Misfits t-shirt and black jeans. "Plus," He continues on as I examine the chunky shape hanging off his belt. Is it a… _sword sheath_?

"Hey! Are you listening to me?" My eyes snap up to his face.

"What?"

"I said," Nico grumbles, "'plus, you have cool toenails.'"  
I swiftly look down at my feet, cheeks turning red as I notice how chipped and unclipped my long toenails are.

_How unfeminine._

"Do you want the damned tour or not?" I mutter.  
He shrugs. "Sure." He hands me my book as I pull on my shoes, and our fingers touch for a quick second.

His cold skin is enough to send chills running down my spine, and I know that tonight's nightmare is going to be much, much worse the ones I had before.

**Reviews are helpful!**


	2. Chapter 2

**I purposely made the dream god as un-Sandman as possible... just shows what stupid humor I have. Sorry for the shortness of this. (And this is obviously in Nico's POV.)**

Morpheus visits me.

Goddamn, he's annoying sometimes. Just because he's the 'Sandman' doesn't make him better than the rest of the dark gods. And plus, I'm having a pretty good dream: Mom and me—the mom I never remembered after being dunked in the Lethe—eating gelato together at a small Italian café in Washington, D.C. She looked exactly the way she'd looked in the mist-image I saw a couple years ago: black dress and gloves, soft black curls tumbling out from under her veiled hat, her facial features graced with my eyes and Bianca's glowing smile.

(For a moment, I wonder how my dad managed to steal her heart. Godly charm?)

I stick the tiny spoon-scoop thing into my mouth and watch my mother carefully, lemony flavor melting in my mouth. She's just sitting there, smiling at me, a glimmer of pride in her eyes.

Mom leans toward me, reaching for my hand across the table. Her touch makes my heart hurt, makes me feel warm but lonely at the same time.  
"Nico…"

Suddenly, a pale hand appears in my line of vision. My mother's eyes widen and she grips my hand harder, clutching my fingers, squeezing. But the mysterious hand, connected to a flickering black sleeve, swipes horizontally, wiping my dream clean like a dry-erase board.

"Hello, son of Hades."

Damn him.

"Morpheus." I make sure my words friendly and cheerful, although my tone is anything but. "What's up? Been in any collector's edition Neil Gaiman comics lately?"

He doesn't smile.

"I need to talk to you about Blake," the dream god mutters.

"Lively?"  
I think of the gossipy fashion magazine Annabeth always scoffs at—the ones she subscribes to herself for 'architectural reasons'. There'd been a skinny blond girl on the last issue's cover—the one Percy had gawked continuously at until Juniper popped out of nowhere and snatched it away... so Grover could start gawking at it, I guess.

Morpheus stares at me like I'm a mildly unintelligent dog trying to assassinate its own tail.

"No. The Blake you met earlier today." His eyes are like two brilliant night skies, full of bright stars and a crescent moon. But even through the odd landscape in his irises, I can tell that he's looking at me with disdain.

"Oh. Her." She seemed like a nice enough girl in the two hours I'd talked to her, although her constant worried glances in my direction kind of creeped me out.

"She…" Morpheus pauses. "Somehow, that mortal channeling me. I mean, her dreams…" His eyebrows furrow together. "I can't see them, or feel them, but I know that they're… different."

I lick excess gelato off of the corner of my mouth and glare at him. "That's terrific, but I really don't see what _I _have anything to do with this. Now, leave me alone so I can go back to—" I stop talking in realization, jaw dropping. "Wait a minute. Is Blake a demigod? Is she your _daughter?_"

His night-sky eyes widen and he shakes his head wildly, shaggy hair flying, looking as ridiculous and un-Morpheus-like as possible. For a second, I wonder why his comic-adaption is so much cooler.

"_No!_"

I cross my arms. "Then why are you here?"

Another pause, a hesitation.

"Well… I can kind of tell that her recent ones are about"—he clears his throat—"you."

Great. Just what I need. Another Nico fanclub member.

"No, no, not like that," Morpheus snorts, reading my mind. "She's dreaming about _bad_ things. The type of things you mortals put into horror movies."

Oh, even better. The first person I meet at CLA happens to be a lost and tormented soul.

Morpheus's eyes flash angrily at my sarcastic thoughts. "Don't you think a _god_ would be serious, king of ghosts? This has already been going on for quite a long time—and just when this 'Blake' girl finally dreams of a half-blood, someone I can sense from her nightmares… you, the half-blood, don't even try to listen!"

I cough. "So… I'm the new Freddy Krueger of her dreams?"

The dream god looks like he wants to kill me. He snarls, and I brace myself for pain or impact, but Morpheus makes no move to touch me. His body shines brightly, revealing his true god form, and I quickly look away, closing my eyes.

When I open them, Morpheus is gone.

**There. Too fanfics in one day. I'm so [un-]proud of myself.**


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